


on stars where no human race is

by chailattemusings



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Other, WIP, will add tags as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-02-28 17:54:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18761443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chailattemusings/pseuds/chailattemusings
Summary: The Divine Fleet is crumbling under the recent deaths of the divines and reaching desperately for a lifeline. One of their throws is a wildcard team to the planet Quire, where two coworkers find themselves stumbling into a dance for which neither knows the steps.Gig Kep-hart adored captivating people and Echo Reverie refused to be captivated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is (planned to be) canon compliant and will use dialogue from the show itself but will eventually shift to a close Gig/Echo relationship focus. I'll bend the canon scenes as need be. I haven't written dedicated fanfic in a long time so please bear with me, and thanks for reading!

Echo had never been on a planet before Myriad landed on the craggy, shambling desert of the planet Quire’s Painted Plateaux. In ways it reminded them of the Tides of Harmony–Echo had grown up displaced and finding comfort in others of the same kind, running supplies and information to the disadvantaged to give them the leg up that they couldn’t survive without. The wide expanse of rocky hills splattered with warm colors and tufts of foliage that made up the tableland had the same feeling of emptiness that Echo had found in the abandoned but not forgotten corners of the Tides. After flying the main ship over the tangled jungles, seeing the open canyons and sheer cliffs was a startling shift.

They’d all been informed of the mission by Myriad and Alekhine: prepare Quire for refugees from the Divine Fleet and establish communications planetside. It sounded simple. Echo had their sword and their fists, cracking their knuckles as they landed on hard planet ground for the first time. Unlike Harmony’s smooth metal floors, the rocks crunched beneath their feet and the dirt kicked up in clouds of dust that powdered their boots. Echo squinted against the red glow of the sand, the landscape one unending sunset of rock.

“A little help!” someone cried, and Echo whirled around to see their new wards struggling with a levitating trolley carrying their mission–a communication node that would connect this planet to the Twilight Mirage. The only other capable one on the team, a former soldier, had the maglev by the handles while Alekhine braced the other side. Echo skipped over and hefted the handles alongside Even Gardner, grunting as they lifted the maglev backwards and settled it onto the planet. It didn’t touch the dirt but hovered a few inches above, the buttons on the side glowing faintly as it generated power from the harsh sunlight above.

“Woof!” Even huffed and bent by the side of the maglev, fiddling with the controls. The node itself was octagonal and taller than Echo, weighing easily two tons. They hadn’t paid attention during Myriad’s briefing about the specs. Echo couldn’t connect to the mesh and had learned long ago not to bother learning much about it. It wasn’t in their job description.

“Work quickly,” Myriad told them. The AI’s robotic body was sleek, humanoid, and gave the impression of solemn trust as she spoke. “We want the uplink established so we can determine the details of the planet and its populous.”

“And,” added one of Echo’s new companions, a man named Grand Magnificent, “the faster we do this, the more time we have to look for that Divine.”

“Potential Divine,” Alekhine said. “Curiosity’s markers can be…” He paused, thinking. “ _Vague_. Myriad and I will be in the ship, it’s too big to traverse the canyons. All of you, stay connected as long as you can and contact us if there’s a problem.”

“What would dislodge the connection?” Even asked, hands on hips.

“Distance, mainly, but there could be unforeseen threats on Quire. Keep an eye out.” Alekhine nodded to Even and then Echo. “Safety is your priority but we do ask that you protect the node to the best of your abilities.”

Echo saluted and the others all muttered agreements, looking distracted in different ways. The soldier had his eyes on the land around them as Echo had, scanning for threats. The _artist_ –Echo grimaced–was using a small device to take pictures of the ship, the node, the _ground_ , anything of interest to him. And the last one, the reporter, was babbling to himself with one finger pressed to his temple, spinning around wildly with one eye glowing and a smile on his face directed at no one in particular.

“Good luck,” Myriad said, motioning Alekhine back inside the ship. Her doors closed, leaving them outside with the maglev, the node’s lights pulsing softly across its gleaming surface.

Without the ship’s cool interior, the heat of the desert quickly built. It helped to be at the base of the canyons, where the cliffs blocked the worst of the sun, and they walked in the shadows as often as they could without depowering the maglev.

Echo lashed their jacket around their waist and led the parade of misfits down the safest paths, running ahead to climb the rocksand scan for danger. The first few days Grand Magnificent was the loudest, crowing about how beautiful the landscape was, what kind of animals might inhabit a planet like this, what the people here would think of the Divine Fleet’s touchdown. He was countered and echoed by Gig Kep-hart, who recorded everything and anything, puttering around the maglev with flighty steps to capture the scenery from every angle.

“Stop,” Echo had told him when he turned his modified camera eye on them. “I don’t want to be in your weird film.”

“It’s not weird, it’s journalism!”

“Yeah, well, no comment.” Echo loosened their jacket from their hips to whip it at Gig’s face, close enough that he reeled back with a startled laugh.

He refrained from filming them overtly after that, but Echo caught him at it again more than once when they made small camps in the dips of the canyons between long days traversing the desert. He leaned close as they scarfed premade meals from their supplies and Echo held their fist up in response. The threat was enough to chase him back though he didn’t look the least bit perturbed. 

 

* * *

  

About five days in Echo was growing tired of Grand, who had switched from childlike wonder to childlike _whining_ , and they were grateful for the break in monotony when it became clear they had a choice to make. The group could take a path through a cave, not knowing what was inside it, or a high path up one of the plateaus where they risked falling or losing the node to the terrain, not to mention the blazing sun that would beat down on them without the protection of the canyons.

Grand Magnificent volunteered to stay with the node while they explored. “It’ll be safe,” he insisted, plopping himself on top like it was a shipping crate made impromptu chair. “I can call Myriad if anything happens.” Myriad, for her part, had taken the ship up to try and map parts of Quire manually while they waited for the node. There weren’t many places to land that were safe and she wanted to put the time waiting to good use.

“You were the one who suggested we explore,” Even grumbled, arms crossed.

“Hey, look,” Echo shrugged. “If he wants to babysit the node, let’s let him do it. We’ve all got signals out here.” For their part, Echo could imagine Grand being easily munched by whatever wildlife might inhabit the planet. Best to at least know where he was if he needed rescue instead of releasing him to explore the desert wilds. “I’ll go up.”

“I’ll explore the cave,” Even said tiredly, eyeing Grand and how relaxed he seemed while resting on the node in the shade of the canyons.

“I’ll go up!” Gig chirped. He beamed at Echo as he said it, his camera eye already whirring.

Echo frowned. They did not need to be slowed down by Gig’s incessant recording of every flake of mica in every rock. But they had no good reason to deny him, either.

As they picked their way among the rocks up to the plateau, Gig said, “I can take it out.”

“What?”

“The eye,” Gig said, pointing to his head. “I can take it out.”

Echo paused, feet braced to push off another rock. Gig stood below them with a curious smile, waiting for Echo to ask him to prove it.

“… okay,” they said, and kept climbing.

The higher they went the slower Gig moved and Echo didn’t have the patience to wait for him. Their hands slipped easily into holds, their legs carried them swiftly between boulders, and they followed the bends of the canyon like the rivers that must have carved them out a millennia ago. A few times Gig called for them to slow down, and Echo shot back the very true fact that they didn’t need two of them to determine whether it was possible to climb to the plateau’s top. “It’s better if we split up,” they said without looking back.

“Okay!” Gig yelled back. When Echo looked over their shoulder they couldn’t find him, Gig’s pink jacket and pale hair lost among the warm hues of the rocks. He’d be fine–they had a connection in case something happened, and Echo would move faster on their own. They were doing their job.

They moved fast along the path and didn’t stop as the sun grew ever hotter, determined to find a path for the maglev. They sweat along with the heat and when they were drenched in it they paused in a small clearing with a rock bluff on one side and a dip back into the canyons on the other. Echo looked up and frowned at where the sun sat in the sky, afternoon sliding into the first touches of early evening. “How far…” they mumbled and spun around, searching for the bend that led back towards the plateau. All they saw were more cliffs and rock face, red and orange strata winding around them in a coordinated kaleidoscope. Echo put a hand to their ear to flick a small button on their communicator–one of the few manual ones that existed. Echo’s lack of ties to the mesh meant any tech they used was built from centuries’ old designs kept more for historic record than practical use, but Myriad had assured them the communicator would work as long as everyone else was within range.

They called Gig. He didn’t pick up.

“Shit.” Echo tried Grand Magnificent, then Even, then Myriad herself, but no one answered. They scampered back down the path and up another cliff to get a better vantage but they saw neither their team, the ship, or the plateau they’d been trying to climb toward. “Aw, crap,” they sighed, rubbing a hand down their face. If they couldn’t find their way back Gig might be snatched by who knew what and it’d be Echo’s fault for running ahead. “If he gets himself killed I’m going to be in so much trouble,” they muttered, leaping off the rocks and landing in a hard crouch on the dirt. “Okay,” they breathed. “Let’s find him.”

They’d focused so hard on finding a way _up_ that Echo hadn’t tracked their way _forward_. None of the cliffs looked familiar, the landscape a blend of craggy shapes, stretched shadows, and dry grass that crunched beneath their boots. Wherever there were gaps in the rocks, the wind kicked up loose dirt and tunneled it straight at Echo, forcing them to constantly squint as they searched for Gig or anyone else on Myriad’s crew.

Finally they found a rock spire, tall and spindly, rising above the other boulders toward the open sky. Echo hissed in delight and launched onto its side to scramble to the top and plant themselves there, balancing carefully on its thin peak and peering down.

It wasn’t long there when they heard a voice calling from down below. Echo turned so fast they nearly fell, arms out to steady themselves–and it was good they did because then a _flying eye_ zipped up from nowhere to spin in front of their face. Echo yelped and reared back, boots skidding as they caught themselves on the rock’s edge. The eye whirred and floated around them, bobbing like it was… happy?

“That is… way grosser than he talked about, huh?” They peered at it, eyes narrowed at the glimmering tech embedded under its surface. They didn’t want to think about how that hooked back into Gig’s head. “How do you talk to an eye?”

The eye bobbed again and tilted in a sort of _come hither_ motion, flying down the rock in a spiral. “Great,” Echo said, dropping to a crouch and climbing down the sheer sides. The eye twirled and spun in the air just below, guiding them back to the ground. Five feet up Echo shoved off and dropped, brushing themselves off. The eye hovered next to them. It looked like something that should have made some kind of humming noise and the fact it was silent only made it creepier.

Echo gestured blindly at the rocks. “Lead the way, buddy.”

The eye obeyed, darting forward, and despite their reservations Echo followed it.

“Echo!”

“Oh, shit.” They startled at Gig’s voice, catching sight of him around the corner a second later. His jacket was a bright pink lantern among the rocks tinted with setting sunlight. He waved. “How’d you get all the way up there?”

“I climbed,” they said, and glanced at the eye. It zoomed back to Gig and floated in front of his face. Echo saw the barest hint of his empty lid twitching and spun wildly on their heels to face the other direction.

Gig grunted quietly and said, “What’s wrong?”

Echo peeked over their shoulder. The eye was back in his head, looking as if it had never gone. They shivered and said, “That is the _grossest_ thing.”

“What? The eye? It’s my camera!”

“Eyes shouldn’t come out of heads!”

“But mine does,” he said, like that was a _real_ argument. “Come on, we can go back.” Gig jerked his thumb behind them. “I got on the plateau and saw some stuff we should tell the crew about.”

“You… _you_ got up there?”

“Yeah, it took a while, but I did it.” Gig started walking as he talked, taking care to examine the canyon around them. “There’s a place for the node like two days away, and then this weird camp not too far off. We should be careful with the node in case they want it or something.”

Echo stuck their hands in their pants pockets and slumped along behind Gig. They could have gotten to the plateau top–they _should_ have. Gig was only here to provide commentary and show off to the people back in the fleet, to inspire hope in them after Gumption’s untimely death. The only thing more insulting would be if Grand Magnificent had somehow made it up there before them.

“Oh, wait,” Gig stopped and there was _shuck_ noise and then the eye was out again. Echo froze as it flew past them and then up, above and around the rising canyon walls. “Might as well keep looking for a path for the maglev.”

Echo suppressed a retch at the eye flying free. “Yeah, still fucking disgusting.”

“I don’t know what your problem is,” Gig said and rolled the _one eye_ still in his head, skipping along the path back towards where Grand Magnificent would be waiting. Echo kept their gaze off Gig’s eye as it buzzed through the air and resisted the urge to run ahead. They wouldn’t be lost and found twice in one day.

 

* * *

 

Grand Magnificent wasn’t at the node.

“Oh my-” Echo groaned and ran a tired hand down their face. “One job. _One_ job,” they growled, stomping around the node to look for tracks. The canyon floor was hard and dry so despite Grand Mag’s slightly round, pampered frame, he left no footprints with which to track him.

“He’s probably fine.” Gig leaned on the handles of the maglev. He’d popped his eye back in and it glowed faintly with its constant recording.

Echo didn’t answer, climbing another rock to scour the land around them. Above the canyon, the sun neared the horizon and the sky burned a faint orange at the edges. It’d be dark soon, and Even had one of their two lanterns. Echo glanced down at the node and–yep, the other one hung innocently off its handles, meant to guide their way when they traveled on the maglev’s internal battery at night.

“Hey! What’s going on?”

Behind them Even shuffled up, the tones of his bulky armor muted with the shadows that stretched longer the lower the sun delved in the sky. “Did you find anything?”

“Maybe.” Echo leaped down and brushed their long hair from their face. “What happened to Grand Magnificent?”

“What?” Even took in the node and Gig leaning cheerily against it. He glanced around them. “He’s not here?”

“Not since we got back.”

“Didn’t he want to stay with the maglev?”

Echo threw up their hands. “He sure did!”

For a minute they stood in frustrated disbelief, and then Even volunteered to search the canyon. Echo agreed grumpily, and they and Gig opened up their bags to make camp for the night. Echo powered down the maglev to preserve the battery, letting it drift slowly to the ground. Nothing short of a mech could lift the node when the maglev wasn’t active.

Even did a pass around the canyon and came back as Echo was lighting a campfire. He hadn’t said more than two words when they all heard a shout in the distance and collectively turned to see Grand Magnificent running toward them with flailing arms and panicked eyes.

‘Shadows,’ he’d claimed after calming down. Echo crossed their arms and tapped a foot impatiently as he explained. He said nothing about leaving the maglev by itself, only that weird shadow people _might_ have attacked him, and Echo did their best to stifle a sigh.

“Maybe they live there,” Echo said as they debated what to do with this new information. “We don’t know what kind of people are here.”

“ _Shadows_ ,” Grand Magnificent muttered in protest, one hand rubbing down his tattooed arm to work out the anxious energy.

Even bit his lip. “What’d you two find?” he asked, looking to them hopefully.

“I found a campfire with some people, and also a safe path for the maglev around the plateau, also I found Echo.” Gig touched a finger as he listed each item and grinned.

Even turned to Echo. “What’d _you_ find?”

“I found rocks.”

“… good work.”

“Also,” Echo announced with only a _tinge_ of pettiness, “Gig has a weird eye!”

“I told you about it!”

“It’s _weird_.”

Gig laughed and swirled his finger in a curved motion. The eye popped out with a slight _squelch_ that made Echo’s stomach flip and they put a hand on their mouth to cover the gag. “Gig!”

“ _Eugh_ ,” Even agreed.

“I am going to _kick_ that thing if you do that again.”

“You know they sell these things in stores,” Gig countered petulantly, waving his hand back to his face. The eye flew back in and he blinked as it readjusted itself.

Echo shook their head to dispel the sight and shifted focus. “Okay, we have two options-”

“One is above the caves and one is through the caves,” Gig said, and laughed at Echo’s glare.

Echo snarled, “I'm going to _throw_ you.”

Gig just laughed louder.


	2. Chapter 2

Having thousands of viewers visiting his blogs on a weekly basis and leaving dozens of comments wasn’t what Gig would call _boring_. But he liked a challenge. Even the people who started fights in the comments of his videos were engaging, forming micro factions amongst themselves with his blog as a platform. They _wanted_ his attention.

Echo didn’t, and that made them fun.

Gig’s eye helped guide them along the high plateau path, the maglev whirring in near silence between them. Echo and Even braced it on either side in case of catastrophe and this freed Gig to film, and Grand Magnificent to spur into an endless babble of new ideas birthed by Even’s discoveries in the cave. “A werewolf mech who ravages cities,” he said, gesturing wildly as he spoke. “Imagine it! We could make it like a Divine but terrifying, all hard angles and jagged teeth!”

“Uh huh.” Echo didn’t even feign interest–their eyes had glazed over an hour prior as Grand Mag laid out the details of a show about lycanthrope mechs. Gig delighted in the concept but even moreso in how disinterested Echo was about listening to it.

“For the last time,” Even insisted, marching ahead of them, “I said _lichen_ , the _plant_.”

“I’m so far past that,” Grand said with a dismissive wave. “Echo, look-”

“Grand Mag-”

“You’re like the opposite of a wold mech that destroys cities, right?” He waved a hand up and down to encompass their whole form. “You should be the hero!”

“I’m gonna pass,” they drawled, hand tensing atop the node’s glowing surface.

Gig saw his chance and leaned over top of the node to Echo. “There’s not even a script yet! You aren’t giving it a chance.”

Echo recoiled, their gaze fixed on the place where Gig’s eye currently didn’t rest. “Look,” they said, turning back to the path, “I don’t care-”

Their words were drowned out by a sudden shrieking that made them all stop short. Gig immediately started spinning his eye around to find the source of the noise, its tiny form darting up the side of the plateau. Another cry echoed quickly after, and another, in a series of calls that sounded like a screeching mix of bird and machine.

Echo snapped into action, tying their hair and whipping off their jacket. One hand went to the sword sheathed at their waist, the other hovering protectively on the node.

“I can’t find whatever it is,” Gig complained, calling the eye back to float by his head.

“Can you get to the top of the plateau?” Even asked, pointing up.

“Yeah, if I-”

“I got it.” Before anyone could object Echo climbed on the plateau wall and jumped onto the node, springboarding off to latch onto a higher cliff and scramble up the rocks.

“Hey!” Even called up, but Echo was too high for the chiding to matter.

Gig snickered and angled the eye to capture shots of Echo’s climb, lingering on the action of their boots pushing off toeholds and their tied hair swinging past their face. Gig half expected them to swat at it–which they did when they reached the top, smacking it violently back down with ferocious speed.

Even put a hand on Gig’s shoulder. “Better leave it. Who knows if whatever’s up there has sensors for that kind of tech.”

“You’re no fun,” he pouted, bringing the eye back to pop into his head. Even blanched. 

The eye worked regardless of where it was and Gig did his best to get an angle on Echo climbing up the rocks. Unfortunately standing directly below meant the best view he got was Echo's ass, and while that wasn't  _unwelcome_ , it might affect his ratings. Gig huffed and shut the feed off, resigning himself to waiting like everyone else. 

Echo dropped back down a few minutes later, landing with a hard thump on the node again with another offended shout from Even, and explained what they’d seen––large mechs in the shape of birds soaring above, and a caravan accompanied by a large truck resting atop the plateau.

Gig’s hands twitched with the need to film until a firm look from Even dissuaded him. That didn’t stop him from recording the rest of their trip around the path and laughing as Grand postured theories about the shadow people coming after them. He made sure to get footage of that, eager to hear what his fans might think. He could start a betting poll for what the creatures had been, get a boost in views…

He distracted himself with the best ways to edit the footage as they moved, occasionally lingering on shots of Even and Echo pushing the node around rocky barriers on the terrain, and by sunset the next day they’d made it around the plateau. Here they stopped again at the sight of a long, worn road going from east to west, and a small building in the distance.

Wary of the mechanical beings in the sky and what they might be searching for, they waited until evening. Gig sent the eye to investigate first, letting it guide them between open stretches of earth and the deep shadows of the plateaus. Echo moved close to the ground like a hunting cat, prowling along the path with hands out and ready for a fight. Ahead of them the eye bobbed along, spotting when the ships passed too close with propulsion lights blinking against the starry blackness of the sky. Each time they stopped Echo grunted in protest, and Gig had to suppress a laugh at just how eager they were for a brawl.

The building resolved itself when they were close enough, a small house attached to a much larger church, both with white walls and a red tile roof. From inside they could hear music drifting out, airy tambourines jingling above the low, measured strums of a guitar. Soft light shone from small, thin windows, casting long lines of dull orange on the dirt road leading up to it.

“Looks safe,” Gig mused.

“Who do we want to send in?” Even looked across each of them.

“Ahh,” Grand Magnificent clutched his pocket knife, which he’d held since they first saw the machines soaring the sky. “I don’t know who should be in charge here.”

“I’ll go,” Gig and Echo said simultaneously. They stared at each other. Echo huffed and squared their shoulders. The pale strands of light from the distant building caught the curves of their muscles and made them even more prominent, compensating for the fact they were easily a foot shorter than Gig as they gazed confidently up at him. “I can handle it.”

“I think I’m good,” Gig insisted. “It was my eye that got us all the way here.” As he said it, it drifted up to float in front of his chest and Gig pat it like he would a loyal dog.

Echo grimaced. “If they’re not friendly-”

“You think this house is less friendly than those,” Gig pointed up at the bird scout mechs, “or _them_?” He jerked his thumb back toward where Echo had seen the truck caravan. “I’m good with people, let me go first.”

“He’s right,” Even agreed. “And if he’s not, we’ll be right behind him.”

Echo clucked their tongue and jutted their chin toward the building. “Fine. Go ahead.”

The dirt path branched between the doors, one going to the house and the other the church. Gig hedged his bet with the church and walked up to its large wood front doors. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen wooden doors–all the entrances on Gumption were old ship walls or converted exhaust pipes or clothing strung up like curtains. But there, these weren’t some slapdash attempt at a barrier. They’d been carved with care, words that Gig didn’t recognize chiseled around the top above what looked like a relief carving of a planet.

“Hello?” Gig opened the door and rapped on it with his knuckles as he peered inside. The eye had been safely stored but he was poised to let it out again if he needed. The inside of the church was bright, glowing lights in the ceiling casting a tint of artificial yellow across the interior. Beyond wood floors and curved stone walls, an open garage door led to the source of the music–a tinny song echoing from speakers on the walls, next to a boxy dune buggy and a mechanic stuffed beneath it, humming along to the music.

His name was Surge and he was an otter. Gig only found this out later–he’d never seen an otter and without a mesh here he couldn’t search the network for the animals the people in Skein resembled. Gig explained where they’d come from but Surge was wary until Gig started to belt along to the song on Surge’s radio. The rest of the group tumbled into the house to the sight of Gig jamming along with his new friend, earning them a place to stay for the night.

“This is my girl and her mom’s place,” Surge rumbled as he inspected the crew standing on shaky legs in his front room. He left the garage but kept the door open, and the song provided a buffer between awkward words. “Would like to have some tea?” he offered, when no one moved.

“I would _love_ some tea,” Gig gushed, and followed eagerly as Surge led them to the kitchen. Even stood stiff with hands at his sides, ever the soldier waiting on someone else’s orders, and Echo bounced on their toes while Surge put a water kettle on for them. Unlike the Divine Fleet, the house was manual, with a pump sink and a stove that used switches and buttons instead of smooth screens. It reminded Gig of Gumption and he settled in quickly on one of the rough wood chairs.

It was practically a haven, the rooms infused with a cozy lived-in quality helped by the candles scattered on several tables and the throw rugs decorated in bright patterns that Gig didn’t recognize. He filmed it all, drafting a blurb for it in the back of his mind as Even explained their mission. When the flurry of new terms became too much for him, Surge introduced them to Janie and retreated into preparing the tea. Janie inspected Grand’s tattoos and listened with narrowed eyes at their explanations of the Fleet and the mesh.

“People here don’t want to be connected,” Surge warned gravely as he poured water into mugs and handed them out. Gig took an eager sip and licked his lips. It was a smooth, earthy taste. “All the factions,” Surge said, resting his own mug on the dining table, “they pride themselves on their differences.”

“We get it,” Even said, “but our own people have been struggling since some of our ships died.”

Surge’s brow furrowed. “Why not just fix them?”

The group collectively groaned and Echo put their head down on the table, exhausted. Gig patted their shoulder and they startled, batting him away reflexively. Gig held up his hands in shining innocence, and said to Surge, “The ships are broken but the Divines, like, _died_.”

“Divines?”

“Old words,” Janie muttered, shaking her head.

Even pinched the bridge of his nose as he flipped through terms to bridge the cultural gaps. Janie rubbed Surge’s back the more frustrated he got with how little he understood, trying desperately to explain Quire’s own groups. Gig frowned at the mention of the _Savage Mandate_ , and dropped his head back to stare at the ceiling. The way he said it sounded like something he’d heard of before, but their description was wholly unfamiliar. People in the Divine Fleet didn’t scavenge–they had all they needed, or at least pretended to. He couldn’t imagine them earning a nickname like _Savage._

“Why didn’t your people send scouts ahead of time?” Surge asked tiredly.

Gig broke from his trance and laughed. “ _We’re_ the scouts ahead of time!”

“… oh.”

“What do you folks need?” Janie asked with hands on her round hips. “We can feed you for the night while you figure out this _communication_ _device_.” She waved her fingers toward the door where, outside, the node sat dormant on the deactivated maglev.

“Finally,” Echo groaned from the table, sitting up. “I’d like actual food, yes.”

Gig leaned over with a grin. “You don’t like the little trail mix bits?”

“It’s rustic,” Grand Magnificent added.

“They’re _rations_ ,” Echo growled. “I want _dinner_.”

“I’ll get you set up.” Surge braced his hands on his knees and lumbered up from his chair, grabbing his cup of tea. He kissed Janie’s cheek as he passed her and started opening up cupboards, taking out cans to inspect and glancing surreptitiously at the Myriad crew, sometimes holding the cans up as he did, like their bright labels could tell him which foods these strange new people would like.

Echo sat up from the table to peer around the door towards the front of the house. “Are we at risk of being attacked here?”

“No,” Surge said slowly, still distracted by the food. “We’re small fries compared to the bigger factions around Quire.”

Grand clutched his pocket knife again and looked around their group. “Are _we_ what they’re looking for?”

Surge frowned and lowered the can in his hand, drumming his fingers on the turquoise countertops. “As long as you stay here, I think you’re okay.”

Gig would play that recording back after, when they were safe, to laugh at the juxtaposition. Because a few minutes later, while the Myriad crew explained what they’d seen among the plateaus to Janie and her eyes went wide at the descriptions, they heard an explosion outside and it became clear very fast that they were _not_ okay.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This is Gig Kep-hart, live on the planet Quire, and some wacky stuff is happening!"

The broadcast was sudden, a feed that started in the corners of the mesh with the quiet of a call alert, and opened to a scene of turbulent midnight combat.

The Doyenne and her beetle mech rushed across a desert plain on a path towards The Sculpture. Its body rumbled on six mechanical legs with gears whirring as trucks drove scattered beneath it like scurrying aphids, the light of multiple moons glinting off its metal plating. Her Saints surrounded her, vigilant and pristine with humanoid hands clasping weapons as big as the trucks. On a plateau across the plain, another large truck and several figures could barely be made out in the distance, their intent clearly on the Doyenne below. The residents of Quire would soon recognize them as members of the Mandati. 

The high angled view tilted to look down on a group of renegades stumbling out of a small friendly building known to some as _Old Church_.

A voice clicked into the feed. 

“ _Hey guys!!”_ a panicked person said over shots of the Old Church group climbing onto vehicles and speeding down the desert road toward the Doyenne and her transport trucks. The camera tilted up in time to catch waves of plasma dropping from a Glintwing to explode on contact with the ground, waves of energy cascading out and barely missing the Doyenne’s convoy.

“ _We came to this planet called_ _ **Quire**_ _to help set up a communication node,”_ the voice continued as the camera spiraled across the conflict, zooming in on the Doyenne, the Saints, the Glintwings in turn. _“We’ve been looking for a place to put it down-”_ The scene switched to the four renegades suddenly out of combat, descending on the surface of Quire’s Painted Plateau from a great, gleaming spaceship. Then, a shot of them walking through the Plateau’s twisted canyons. _“-but we were just interrupted by_ _ **this**_ _.”_ The feed cut back to the battle as the Glintwing rose up, its plasma wings restored, circling with the other flying mechs to wait for another opening. 

The Saints sprung forth. Saint Caliper aimed her rifle at the sky to take shots at the mechs, which swerved and swooped out of harm’s way with graceful dives. In the distance, barely caught on the camera, Saint Auger was running to a plateau at the south and launched viself at it, digging the mech’s drills into the side to scramble upward. The figures above ver wasted no time rushing to the edge, launching gliders to carry themselves down the side as their armored truck drove off the plateau with a craggy rumble. Its movements down were jerky, unnatural, but the camera didn’t give its audience any shot of what propelled the truck messily down the steep rocks. 

The shot cut again from the deep grays of midnight to a bright shot of the orange and red of the canyons: the camera ran up the side of a rock pile and stopped in front of a surprised face, zooming out to show a person with long blue hair and a bright jacket tied around their waist, standing alone on a rock spire with hands on hips. The camera bobbed up and down as if in joy at the sight of them. 

“ _We don’t know what’s going on,”_ the feed showed a campsite and the tattooed crew member running in from off screen with panicked eyes and flailing arms, _“_ _or_ _if we’re on a side,”_ it showed the crew wandering into Old Church, Surge and Janie’s soft expressions as they welcomed these strangers to their outpost, _“we just have to_ _ **go**_ _.”_

The voice cut and sounds flooded the feed: the crumbling echo of rocks that Saint Auger was drilling out of place as ve climbed up the plateau, the screeching tires of the transport trucks trying desperately to speed away from the attack, the shrieking metallic cries of the Glintwings above. 

Shots fired into the air and the camera spun again to show Janie: on a good day the people from the Crown of Glass knew her as a talented tattoo artist. On days like this, mechs kicking up the dry desert ground and bringing the plateaus down around them, she was a force to be reckoned with, aiming at the Glintwings with a fire in her eye. The camera lingered on her, sweat beading on her brow and fingers solid on the trigger. 

A roar echoed in the distance, high above. _“Whoa!”_ the voice behind the camera cried as from the sky another mech plowed its way through the atmosphere with a crackling, digital roar. It was the sound of electricity itself dying, followed by a _boom_ that echoed through the plain. The camera rocketed above the dust clouds to get an aerial shot of the new contender: a mech shaped like a lion, deep purple with vibrant orange insignia shining through layers of grime and broken edged plating. It roared again and leaped towards the renegades. One of them–a square bodied man in armor–leaped off his ride in Surge’s buggy to hook onto the side and climb in the cockpit, its clear canopy crashing into place over him.

The roar had cut over the sounds of combat and for a moment there was an eerie stillness. Saint Auger’s mech had settled on the plateau top and was readying vir weapons, the Glintwings quiet as they searched for another angle on the Doyenne. The camera moved fast toward the plateau where the truck had settled at the base, its body shaking as plates slid back and its top started to open. 

Another rifle shot cut through the chaos, this time followed by the delicate shattering of glass.

Saint Glass had been shot, and they fell. Their hammer dropped with a thunderous slam on the solid desert floor. 

Like a signal flare the Glintwings struck, dropping three plasma bombs at once across the Doyenne’s forces. One truck toppled head over end, its cargo exploding out of the shattering body. The sound clicked again and the reporter’s voice said, much shakier than before, _“Hey guys. I have this- this gun, and I might have to use it.”_ The feed switched to a perspective shot from the reporter’s view: dark, thin hands clutching a pistol at their side. 

The feed lingered there a moment, on those shaking fingers, pink jacket sleeves rolled up to the elbow, screams and gunshots echoing in the distance. Then the outer camera clicked back on.

It had reached the plateau in time to see the blue haired renegade leaping from the dune buggy to roundhouse kick one of the Mandati. More shots fired into the sky, lower and longer than the rifles, and it was mirrored with a Glintwing’s vibrating shriek. But the camera stayed on the fighter as they caught the gun their victim tried to aim their way and swung it toward another Mandati, taking two down in one smooth move.

The camera lingered on them cracking their knuckles against their palm and tossing their long hair over their shoulder. It panned quick to another Mandati soldier standing not ten feet away and reaching for a gun, but one harsh glare from the renegade made them freeze. 

The focus on the fighter almost made the audience forget the armored truck, visible on the corner of the shot. But as it clunkered open, the roof unfolding in dozens of tiny layered sheets of metal, the camera shot upward again to capture the sight of a cannon the size of a car rising from its bed and settling with the clicks of metal latches pinning it in place.

“ _Thaaaat’s a problem,”_ the camera person said, and paused suddenly. The camera rose up and zoomed on a figure at the top of the plateau. They were bent over a propped rifle, face covered, fingers working deftly to unhook his gun from its stand. _“And so is that.”_

The Glintwings cried again and an explosion sounded from below. The camera whirled down in time to see shots firing from the truck cannon without abandon, the truck ricocheting backwards into the plateau’s base as fiery projectiles careened into the crowd. The explosions glowed neon orange and lit up the dark desert with flares of raw energy, each successive shot threatening the Doyenne's armored beetle. 

There was a collective moment where it looked like the Doyenne might be lost to the onslaught of turmoil–but when the camera swung to her she was in no danger.

Her Q-Glass had spread in thin filaments across the battlefield, rising at her command to shield herself and her entourage. One of the trucks had been downed, its produce spilling across the ground, but further shots careened into the glass itself and imploded on impact, a rolling noise of fire and pressure coiling around the glass and dying with a _pop_. The fighter at the edge of the camera’s view clapped hands over their ears, knees folding as the sound of suspended cannon fire shook them to their core. 

Saint Symmetry squared themselves under the stalled cannon shots, armor gleaming in the moonlight. They planted their shield in front of the Doyenne’s trucks and whacked the top once to hold it in place, running forward with the sword tight in their other hand. One, two, three bounds and then a jump straight onto the truck to pierce their sword through its cannon. _“That’s fucking amazing!”_ the camera person crowed into the feed, and then coughed. _“I mean, uh, did you all see that? We’ll roll that footage over again for you.”_

The feed played back, catching the blue haired fighter ducking out of the shot the second before Saint Symmetry slammed down on the truck. When it cut back the truck was lying on its side and its Mandati operators were dozens of yards away, scattering before Saint Symmetry could bring their weapon down on them. In the distance the Glintwings cried again, their calls stuttered with clipping static, and their mechanical bodies fell into the frame on a death soar to the ground. Crunching metal and splintered artificial calls echoed over the feed as the camera swerved to get shots of the rest of the Mandati abandoning the scene. The Doyenne’s remaining trucks crowded under her beetle like baby chicks in a nest, the three Saints convening around Saint Glass’ fallen body. 

The audience collectively surged at that, Quire’s people reaching futilely at the incorporeal mesh as if to comfort Saint Glass’ mech and their body limp inside the heart. They wanted the camera to linger there, to let them mourn Saint Glass’ sacrifice in protecting the Doyenne, but it turned away to speed back across the plateau, back toward Old Church and the unknown team from offplanet that surrounded Surge and Janie. Their voices filtered into the feed with questions–checking if the others were safe, if anyone had sustained injuries, if anyone knew the reason behind the attack. The details were lost in the babble as the camera floated between them, pausing for inordinately long moments on the martial artist wiping their bloodied knuckles on their shirt, eyes cast down and breathing hard as their mind caught up to their body. 

Before anyone could wonder at this framing, the ground shook, and the group all looked up to see the Doyenne’s beetle approaching with slow, thundering steps, her form shimmering solemn and pristine behind the glass of her beetle’s shell, her eyes intent. 

“ _W-we’ll be right back,”_ the camera person whispered, and the live feed cut. 


End file.
